Drew blends decades of behind-the-scenes legal experience in the Buffalo sports world with a passion for teaching

“As long as there is demonstrated interest and commitment by sufficiently financed local owners and a dedicated, passionate local fan base, leagues prefer not to move teams.”

Nellie Drew, adjunct professor of law

University at Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. — University at Buffalo Law School sports
law expert Nellie Drew believes Buffalo sports fans will get their
wish: The Bills will stay in Buffalo.

And while she’s not a party to the confidential
negotiations that will determine the team’s fate, she brings
the next-best thing: a synthesis of educated opinions based on
decades of sports law experience at the very top of Buffalo
professional sports, the instincts of a spellbinding teacher and
the soul of a Western New York sports fan who would bleed Buffalo
red, white and blue all over the power suits she has worn through
some of the most historic sports negotiations of Buffalo’s
modern sports era.

“They will stay here,” says Drew, a UB Law School
graduate and now adjunct professor who teaches four sports law
courses, including negotiating sports contracts, selling sports
franchises and drug testing in professional sports.

“Anyone who watched Andre Reed’s induction into the
Hall of Fame knows that. Practically, it is never an easy
matter to move a team. As long as there is demonstrated interest
and commitment by sufficiently financed local owners and a
dedicated, passionate local fan base, leagues prefer not to move
teams.”

Drew is a font of sports-law wisdom and hands-on experience with
a passion for Buffalo, its people and its sports teams. She was a
key player in some of the most famous and influential deals in
Buffalo Sabres and NHL history during the past 25 years, sometimes
while in advanced pregnancy with one of her seven biological
children.

She is known for her memorable bonding techniques to bring
people together — from cookie rituals that galvanized
consensus during high-level, legal board meetings, including talks
leading up to the building of First Niagara Center; to sitting back
as her students threw her a surprise baby shower in class; to
role-playing in class and assigning students famous sports law
identities — and typecasting when possible.

“I had one young man become so ingrained into his role as
Jerry Jones that he showed up for class in a Stetson and cowboy
boots,” Drew says. “Another was the late Al Davis for
the semester. I could always count on him to interrupt in class
with an aptly timed, ‘I’ll sue!’”

She customarily pelts students with candy around Halloween in
return for correct answers. She’ll tell
“real-life” stories to illustrate legal principles
— her definition of “reckless” is the actions of
a teenage boy, such as the time her own son started punting
footballs too close to the house after a recent trip to Bills
training camp.

Her mentors and close colleagues range from former Sabres and
NHL counsel Robert O. Swados, to Deputy Erie County Executive
Richard M. Tobe to revered UB Law School professors Dianne Avery
and Alfred S. Konefsky, and former dean R. Nils Olsen.

Drew also has behind-the-scenes
stories offering glimpses of the informal and sometimes raw
life of a top sports law lawyer who witnessed classic moments of
Buffalo sports history:

She accidentally broke then-Sabres owner Seymour Knox
III’s eyeglasses when Brad May’s overtime goal
eliminated Boston in the 1993 playoffs. While sitting next to Knox
and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, she flung her arms around Knox
after the winning goal, knocking off his glasses. “Nellie,
you can break my glasses anytime we score a goal like that!”
he told her.

As assistant to Buffalo Sabres attorney Robert O. Swados, who
was also counsel to the NHL, Drew was privy to all league
expansions of the 1990s. A favorite story involves the NHL owner
who took a conference call while having his teeth drilled in the
dentist chair.

She helped Sabres General Manager Gerry Meehan work his way
through what Drew calls the “elements of a bad
‘B’ movie” as he and Sabres star Alexander
Mogilny tried to elude Russian security through the streets of
Helsinki, Finland.

Years before she knocked off Knox’s glasses, Drew set her
sights on working for the Sabres when, as an undergraduate at
Harvard, she wrote a critical note to the owner, blasting him for
trading Danny Gare, (“Even a Yalie should have known better
…” she wrote.). Within the week, she opened her mail
to find got a copy of the Knox brothers’ book inscribed
“To Nellie, with best wishes. Go Bulldogs!”

The constant through all these adventures and first-hand
encounters with the Western New York sports landscape is
Drew’s love of Buffalo and its sports teams.

“It’s why I came home and why I didn’t leave,
despite opportunities to do so,” she says. “Isn’t
it fun to watch Buffalo come back? And the people. You just
don’t find them like this anywhere else.”

Drew knows how much having the Bills matters to people from
Buffalo, regardless of generations.

“I’m not sure I can even contemplate what would
happen if they left,” she says. “Have you ever driven
down Transit Road on a Sunday in the fall during game time? You can
shoot the proverbial cannon down it.”

Former Erie County Executive Dennis Gorski once commissioned a
study to determine the extent of the local commitment to the Bills
to justify making improvements to Ralph Wilson Stadium.

“The results of the study were amazing — even by
Buffalo standards,” Drew notes. “In excess of 90
percent of the population of Erie County valued the Bills more than
their jobs, their families and, in some instances, even their
religion. If anything, I think that fanaticism has increased in the
interim.

“How do you replace that? Beyond the undeniable economic
impact the Bills have, the sociological ramifications would serve
as the basis for several PhD studies,” she says. “How
many times have you run into somebody wearing Bills’ insignia
in a distant place, stopped to chat and discovered an ex-patriate
or a neighbor from 15 minutes away? Our sense of community and our
collective image is inextricably tied to that charging
buffalo.”

Consequently, Drew has clear advice to local and state
government officials — as well as fans — on how to make
sure the Bills do stay here, all from the perspective of a lawyer
and fervent member of Bills and Sabres nation.

“Given the mandate of such a significant portion of the
population, I believe it is incumbent upon the state and local
governments to assist in keeping the team in Buffalo,” she
says. “Of course, how they do that is the question. The good
news is that the region is so much stronger economically than it
was even five years ago. The difficult part is that choices still
have to be made. Hopefully, another successful private-public
partnership can be forged that will allow the Bills to compete both
athletically and financially for the long term.”

And she doesn’t hesitate when asked if there is anything
fans can do on the grass-roots level.

“Absolutely. Buy tickets,” Drew says. “This
year, you can make a difference by voting with your wallet and with
your feet. Let’s fill the Ralph from August through December.
If you want to go the extra mile, contact Gov. (Andrew) Cuomo and
Sen. (Charles) Schumer, both of whom have already expressed their
commitment to keep the Bills. Thank them, tell them that you vote
and that you are wholeheartedly in favor of government support for
the Bills.”

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